


Doomed to Die

by bunn



Series: Mandos [6]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Ainur Point of View, F/M, Families of Choice, First Age, Halls of Mandos, Mortality, Peredhil - Freeform, The Why Luthien question, now with value-added comments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28182714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn
Summary: Dior and Nimloth come to the Halls of Mandos. Nimloth has important matters to address with a reluctant Námo.I prefer not to believe in the default assumption that Dior must be a Man.  This is my alternative.  Thanks to Grundy for a very helpful beta!
Relationships: Dior Eluchíl/Nimloth of Doriath
Series: Mandos [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/694407
Comments: 30
Kudos: 101





	Doomed to Die

Nienna strode through the Halls of Mandos, past dim doorways and flickering lights, past the thoughts of elves wrapped in starlight caught in fountains in their thoughts. Here was a father with his sons beside him, enmeshed in shared thought, there, lovers strained towards one another, not yet quite ready to embrace without one or the other recoiling as griefs sharp as swords came between them.

But Nienna, and the small companion who clung with determination to her hand, were not looking for the spirits of fallen Elves. Nienna was looking for her brother, the lord of these Halls.

He was not in the great throne-hall with the great domed ceiling that soared into misty non-existence overhead, nor in the Halls of Light, nor walking in the gardens of stone that stretched away quietly into the mist.

Nor was he in the newly-built stables, where she found Oromë completing his work upon the stalls for the many horses that had begun arriving at the Halls of Mandos in company with the Elves who had lived and died beside them.

Oromë came forward to greet her, dusting the sawdust from his lean practical hands. “You’re looking for Námo? He’s not here.”

Nienna pushed back her veil with her spare hand, and looked carefully around her, frowning in irritation. “I’m starting to think he’s hiding from me.”

Oromë raised an intrigued eyebrow, his eyes narrowing with amused interest. “Who is your companion, Nienna?”

The elf-spirit that clung to Nienna’s hand was white with shock and shivering slightly. Upon her neck and shoulder a great wound shimmered in and out of reality. She had all the marks of a spirit new-come to Mandos.

“This is the lady Nimloth, Oromë. She and her husband Dior were slain by your old friend Celegorm and his brothers, Caranthir and Curufin.”

“Ssss,” Oromë hissed in disapproval. “No longer any friend of mine.”

But Nienna wept. “No friend of the Valar, and yet I can only weep for him. Dior took his revenge. Celegorm fell to Dior’s blade, and he too has come to these halls.”

Through Oromë’s mind a young elf ran, smiling with a bow in hand, fair tousled hair and a great hound by his side, and he sighed for all that had been lost.

“Do not be concerned, Nimloth.” Nienna reassured the pale shocked elven spirit, “No harm can come to you here. Celegorm will not hurt you.”

Under the combined attention of two of the Valar, the elf-spirit shook herself and straightened, her head up and her eyes wide, but her face filled with determination.

“But can harm come to _him_? For he has earned it!”

Oromë noticed with interest that Nienna was not simply carrying Nimloth along with her. Nimloth was gripping on to Nienna’s hand with the desperate rigor of some tiny injured beast who knows that to let go is to be whirled away and lost, but that to hold on still holds some faint hope of a future. Intriguing, Oromë thought, in one so recently dead.

Nienna shook her head. “Let go of vengeance. The lord of these halls has doomed all of the House of Fëanor, and that is enough. We have other matters to consider.”

Nimloth’s small nails were digging into Nienna’s hand like claws. Oromë smiled, half against his will, to see her determination.

“I must speak with the lord of these Halls,” Nimloth said, faint but her voice clear and sharp. “Help me find him! I must... I must speak with him.”

“Nimloth...” Nienna said, frowning.

“I haven’t seen him for some time,” Oromë said truthfully. “But I am nearly done here, and who but I should aid you in your hunt?” He clicked his fingers, and hounds came running from field and stable, hounds of all shapes and sizes, shadowy and shifting in form, but all with tails wagging and noses attentive to his command. “Námo, Lord of Mandos!” he told them, in their own tongue, and the hunt was on.

They raced through the long dim halls behind the hounds, and the halls shifted and changed around them as they went, doors disappearing, corridors narrowing before them and then opening again as the hounds shoved through, tails waving, snouts down on the trail. Not even the Lord of Mandos could evade the Hounds of Oromë on the hunt.

They turned a final corner, and found Námo himself, standing tall and somewhat indignant in the middle of a growing pool of wagging tails. His eyes flicked briefly over Nienna and Nimloth and then seemed to fix on Oromë as a safer target. He frowned forbiddingly. “Why are all these... beasts in my halls?”

“Sorry,” Oromë said unapologetically, and clicked his fingers again to banish the Hunt. He himself quietly leaned against a convenient pillar to watch. There would be no blood here in the Halls of Mandos, where such matters of the body were far distant, but there might be amusement, at the least.

“This is Nimloth,” Nienna said to her brother. “The wife of Dior, son of Lúthien the Mortal.”

“I know who she is,” Námo muttered, not meeting her eyes. He was wearing a many-eyed form. If he had known as much about the chase as Oromë, he would probably have chosen fewer eyes, and larger ones.

“I beg you, return my husband to me,” Nimloth said, which was not what Oromë had expected. Interesting. Her spirit was translucent and dark shadows of strain pulled through every line and shadow of it, but she did not let go of Nienna’s hand. “You had mercy on his mother, when she begged to be allowed to follow the path of Men. Have mercy now on me.”

“He is a Man,” Námo said, his face stony. “Lúthien begged, for love, to be a mortal woman, and she is. Her son is a Man.”

“Her son has never met a Man, save for his father Beren,” Nienna said. “Dior tells me that he was born among Elves, and lived all his life among them. I beg you brother, have pity, and do not part him from his wife. They were married for such a short time.”

“Nonetheless, Dior has the Gift of Men, which comes from the Allfather. We cannot keep making exceptions, or where is the point in having laws at all?”

“And yet it is a cruel law that would separate man and wife until the breaking of the world, for no fault of either of them,” Nienna said imploringly, “Remember your pity for Lúthien, and do not abandon her son.”

“I am not abandoning him,” Námo told her, frowning. “I am only applying the law of What Is and What Must be. That is my role. I am the doomsman of the Valar, and it is for me to keep the Law.”

Nimloth drew herself up. “But how is this law?” she demanded, in a small clear voice. “Dior is half a man by blood, but he is an Elf by choice and by marriage, just as much as Lúthien was mortal by her choice.”

“She’s got a point there, Námo,” Oromë put in, touched by Nimloth’s clear distress. “Are you really going to have it put about that the laws of Arda can be got around by a beauty that takes your eye, but not by her son? Doesn’t make us look very consistent, that.”

“Lúthien’s fate was decided by the Allfather,” Námo said in a voice like a great door closing.

But Oromë laughed, scenting weakness on the breeze that blew in from the free air beyond. “And it was you who went to Manwë and asked him to speak with Eru. You, the keeper of the law, asked for a new law to overturn the order of things! You can’t deny it, Námo. We are all one with Arda now, yes, even you! Even the Doomsman. And so, like all of us, you have your weaknesses. And now here’s the consequence. Face it. We all must.” He grinned, showing his teeth, and could see in Námo’s face that he had bitten deep.

“It is not an easy path, I have found, to be the judge, the doomsman and the jailer of the dead,” Námo said quietly but with terrible emphasis, meeting his eyes, and after a discomforting moment, Oromë himself looked away. “Everyone that comes before me has their tale of grief and many good reasons to ask for pity, yet it is not my task to give it to them.”

“It is my task,” Nienna laid her free hand on his arm, comforting. “If I may counsel you...”

“I have lost my children,” Nimloth said, and Oromë was startled by the teeth she gave her small voice. “My killer is here, in these halls, for he is an elf! No harm may come to him, I am told, and yet harm is done to Dior, and to me! Dior may be the son of Beren, but he is my husband, the father of my children. I know him better than his mother, far better than you! He has the heart and spirit of the Eldar. Why should he be cast out of Arda to go with strangers?”

Námo threw up his many hands. “This is a question that all the dead ask. Why this one, why that. Why me?”

There was a long pause as he stared down at Nimloth, and then, as she shrank back, Nienna spoke to her brother, kindly, sympathetically. “Why Lúthien?” she asked. “Why Beren?”

Námo frowned, and then his eyes looked inward, remembering, looking back onto the memory of the First Music that he held in mind more clearly even than Manwë.

At last he answered her. “Because it was sung. Because together they were the theme upon which Arda was made, and without them the Music would fall short, even as it would fall short without the fires and rages of Melkor,” he said at last, and a good deal more, which Nienna and Oromë could hear even if Nimloth could not, and which no Elf nor Man would ever understand.

“And yet,” Nienna said, steadfast, “I do not hear in the Music there that there should be no mercy for their children, though they too are doomed to greatness. The All-father has given his gift to Lúthien, which is against all the laws that went before.”

“There’s more to Arda than the law,” Oromë suggested. “Come Námo! Don’t you tire of being grim and implacable now and again?”

Námo’s many eyes flared with annoyance, and for a moment Oromë felt the full force of Death and Doom, of Námo, the abyss beside which Oromë ran through light and life.

“I never tire. I am the Judge.” Oromë was not fool enough to press the matter, though he was not sure that even Námo believed his own words. After a moment, Námo’s anger faded, and he directed his attention to Nienna and to Nimloth.

“In this matter, I will hear your counsel, sister. I judge that this is not a new law, but arises from the Choice of Lúthien, upon which Eru and Manwë have already ruled. But the Law that Elves and Men are of different fates still stands.”

He knelt and took up Nimloth’s free hand, and under his touch, standing between the two Valar, the pale shocked spirit firmed into the form of an elf of stern character, her jaw set with determination despite the grief in her eyes.

“The choice of one hand,” Námo told her, almost gently, counting each finger and the thumb as he spoke. “Lúthien, her son, your children, their children and grandchildren, each in their time may choose to be counted among the Elves or among mortal Men. And after that, no more until the breaking of the world.”

She caught her breath, by habit rather than because she needed breath. “Dior can stay with me?”

“If he chooses to do so,” Nienna said, and she wept. “He may choose to go to his parents, or to stay with his wife. He is doomed to grief, and even the Valar cannot change that.”

“But at least he can choose it,” Nimloth said to her, still gripping her hand with delicate fingers, strong as claws.

“He can. Let us then go to him, where he lingers before the doors, and ask his will.”

“I take it you aren’t coming to see what he chooses?” Oromë asked Námo, as they turned away.

Námo looked pained and turned away, his many eyes half-closed. “No. I do not need to see to know. And it does not please me that there are exceptions to the Law. It is untidy.”

“And the realm of Death should be well ordered, and the law upheld by the Judge,” Oromë said, feeling obscurely sad, though he could not have said exactly why. It was something to do with young Celegorm, and that he would never hunt beside him again, and something to do with Námo, too... He grinned, deliberately showing teeth. “Well, I’m going to see what he does. Want to lay bets? I think he might choose Men, after all. More of an adventure, I’d say.”

Námo shook his head. “Your curiosity is incorrigible! You fill my halls with rowdy hounds, and you wander in and out of Death unannounced as the whim takes you. It’s most disorderly, Oromë!” But as he said it, he smiled.

******

The long hallway that led to the Door of No Returning was more brightly lit than most of Mandos, with great golden lanterns echoing the Sun. A brisk breeze that smelled of Spring blew through it, hurrying the shifting, shadowy spirits of Men through to a place beyond time, impossible for even the Valar of Arda to imagine.

Dior’s spirit, when Nienna and Oromë came up to it, was not recognisably Man nor Elf nor anything else. It was a swirling pool of light, coloured with a shade of the eternal flame and shot with veins of blood-red and black, jarring and unsettling. At a glance, Oromë might have taken him for one of the Maiar unbodied and in pain.

One of the people of Mandos was with him, a lesser Maia in the form of a small furred creature with gentle stroking hands. It looked far more like the shades of Men passing swiftly through than Dior did.

As Nimloth approached, though, he began to take form, hands reaching, the suggestion of a head and torso emerging from the swirling light. At the sight of him, Dior’s wife let go of Nienna’s hand at last, and reached back with both hands to embrace him, until her pale slim form was encompassed in light that was sometimes a spring sunrise, and sometimes red and bloody as the sun setting after a great storm, among torn clouds like hands.

Nienna knelt beside them, weeping. “The Lord of these halls has pronounced his doom,” she said gently, though there was nothing gentle about the fierce embrace before her. “Dior, Thingol’s heir, you may choose which people shall be yours. Will you follow your mother and father as a mortal, or will you remain here, bound to Arda until the world’s ending?”

Then at last Dior took form, and seeing his face, Oromë was taken aback, because he had never seen an Elf so fair, nor a face so young and so overcome with sorrow.

“Nimloth,” Dior said, and now Nimloth was holding his new-formed shining hands in hers with a fierce protective grip. “She is the one I chose for myself. I am an Elf. I will stay with Nimloth.”

“So be it,” Nienna said, rising. “Come with me now, and I shall show you a place to rest.”

*****

Oromë wondered then, standing alone in the long hall filled with the spring breeze and the hurrying shades of Men, whether to go to Celegorm and demand to know what he had come to, that he had slain that fair young prince and his lady.

But the judgement of the dead was not his province, and he had been in the halls of the dead for longer than was entirely fitting already. The faces nagged at him, both the sorrow he had seen in Dior and Nimloth, and the thought of Celegorm facing them, sword in hand.

He shuddered. This was not a matter for the Huntsman. It was a matter for Námo, whose fate was bound up with these high matters of doom. Oromë was very glad that they were not his to deal with. He turned a corner that was not really there, and passed out into Life, into a wide moonlit forest glade, where the leaves hung long and small creatures scurried through the grass.

Somewhere in the distance, wild wolves were calling.


End file.
